Chapter 19 - Onward Towards The Forest Exit
"Then what do we do!?" Kana did not want to die again, and she didn't want to keep running like she was now. Not to mention there were a bunch of humans around her too. She did not want to get anywhere near humans, and now she was stuck running away with them. She started to wonder if the god who gave her a second chance got bored and decided it would be funny to send two things she hated the most at her at the same time.
"Try to swim to the opposite shore if you can. Only then can we formulate a plan. Right now, we are in a bad position. We can not even get away quickly while in the water. If we can get to the other side, the three eyed horned bear will need to search for you again. By that time, we may be able to escape the forest." Lysairth could not think of any other plan. She knew Kana was no match for this bear until she reached her third evolution. This was why the three eyed horned bear had its own territory. The three eyes and horn told her the stage of evolution it was in. If it had two horns, it was in the fourth stage.
"Okay, on it!" Kana did her best to stay above water as the river's water rose and sank. But as Kana continued to swim, she realized she was being followed. "Why are you stinking humans following me!?"
"Who would follow a dirty lizard!" Ceilie was the first to shout out. But in truth, they really were following her. Everyone knew animals had better survival instincts than humans. And since they just so happened to have an intelligent lizard leading the way, they might as well hop on for the ride.
Kana felt defeated cause there was nothing she could do about them following her while she was in the river. Knowing this, she continued forward only to see a large shadow once again flying overhead. "Again!?"
The tree hit the water surface, causing a huge wave to come crashing towards Kana. She took a deep breath and ducked under the water and swam to a nearby sunken log, and latched ahold of it with her tail. She did not care what happened to the humans, but she really did not wish to be washed back towards the opposite shore. "Kana, it's fine now. You can continue forward."
"Mmm!" Kana let go of the sunken log and quickly swam towards the opposite shore. "Gah! That was no fun…" Kana took a deep breath as she looked over towards where the three eyed horned bear was, its bloodshot eyes staring right back at her. She could feel the rage and killing intent it had for her. Too lazy to even try to mock it, Kana stood up and shook her body to get the water off. Since she was not too tired, she took off into the woods.
A few minutes later, five figures struggled to climb up onto the river bank. They were all panting for air and soaked from head to toe. "Thank god we're alive!"
"I swear, If I ever see that lizard again, I will kill her!" Ceilie no longer had the normal spunk as she always did as she collapsed on the ground, breathing heavily.
"Well, I can understand why the lizard would be mad. I mean, we basically trained the three eyed horned bear on it." Thane knew it was their fault for getting the lizard caught up into their mess, so he was not mad after having rocks thrown at him.
"The biggest issue is what the hell is wrong with that bear!? Why did it want to chase us so badly?" Ray felt like there was something wrong with that three eyed horned bear. It seemed hell bent on chasing them no matter what.
"Who knows, maybe it was just hungry…" Rene said as she sat up and twisted her robe, trying to get as much water out of it as possible.
For the five humans, they had no idea that the reason behind the three eyed horned bear's rampage was a certain little lizard. If they did, they probably would have happily tried to serve the three eyed horned bear, the little lizard they had been following in hopes of surviving. "In any case, we owe the lizard our lives in a way. It led us to a path of survival."
"I don't care. I am still killing it!" Ceilie yelled out as she kicked her feet in the air.
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Much further downstream, Kana finally slowed her pace as she looked up at the sky. "Lysairth, is this the right way?"
"It should be. We just want to exit the forest for now. Sorry, we couldn't make your pillow…" Lysairth felt bad because she knew Kana was looking forward to making that pillow, but now they had lost any chance of doing so now that they were on opposite sides of the shore and Lysairth did not dare cross back over. Not with that deranged bear on that side of the river. Luckily the three eyed horned bear did not like water. This was why it did not try to swim across the river to go after Kana.
"It's okay. The next time we have the materials, I can make one. Plus, my tail is pretty comfortable too." Kana did not mind. Right now, even with all the danger, her life was much better than it was in her past life. Although she still found things interesting after talking with Lysairth, she decided not to go sticking her nose into things anymore. Not after having a plant almost eat her face off three times in one day. This was one of the reasons why she was taking her training so seriously and listening to what Lysairth was telling her. The other reason was she found fighting fun, and she noticed she was slowly improving her fighting skills with each monster she fought.